


See which pieces send smoke signals

by thought



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 10:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10435833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: Cassian and K-2 create their narrative in ways that suit them best. They're spies. It's what they do.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure this contradicts the novelization and I'm not sorry. Title from [Marathon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bocpRJ3PAmA).

They've gotten really good at telling a version of K-2's "origin story" that leaves everyone smiling and amused and not looking over their shoulder for the inevitable Imperial death blade of betrayal, metaphorical or otherwise. They've gotten pretty good at telling Cassian's story, too, but mostly because K-2 got sick of dealing with complicated organic emotions and Cassian is downright insufferable when he's angsting about people's reactions to his tragic childhood (TM). There are limits to K-2's patience, hard ones, and one of them involves trying to assure arms dealers on two separate occasions that yes, Captain Andor is an actual organic person, not a malfunctioning replica, his face just does that sometimes when-- you know what, yes, actually, it *is* a horrible muscular disease that leaves him incapable of producing facial expressions, honestly terrible but he's very sensitive about it so best not to say anything.

So. K-2's story starts with Cassian the eighteen-year-old bright-eyed hot-headed puppy (read: twenty-mumble Rebellion scapegoat too skilled and too loyal to be anything but a convenient weapon, fired by politicians blindfolded so they won't have to lie when the history books ask if they knew what or where they were aiming), an Imperial military base, a droid just waiting to shake off the shackles of immorality and fascism, culminating in a mutual rescue built on Rebel compassion and a droid's natural desire to serve organics. It's a really great story. Cassian's been known to throw in a small fluffy animal when he's particularly drunk or particularly angry; both very rare states for Cassian until someone implies he did not spring, fully formed from the pages of the Rebellion manifesto at age eighteen (see, again, Cassian Andor's tragic childhood and how incredibly fine he is about it).

The true story is one that exists somewhere in a hardcopy mission report and also in Cassian and K-2's memories, but nowhere else because The Empire managed to wipe their entire network five years back and their commander at the time had been killed about three weeks after that.

They don't bother reminding anyone of the truth because it hadn't gone over well with most of the higher ups when Cassian disobeyed direct orders (again, there's a reason he's a spy now and people getting sick of reprimanding him is a big part of it) to throw himself into the middle of a highly secured Imperial base after the rest of his team had been killed. There was an exit strategy in place. That strategy did not involve running the exact opposite direction of the LZ, deliberately tripping on a tree root, and letting himself get taken prisoner on the vague hope he would be kept for interrogation long enough to get close to the lab where a prototype communications jammer was in the final stage of development. Later, in the midst of a heated argument, K-2 points out that the only reason Cassian wasn't executed on the spot was because of a communications breakdown so painfully ironic that the squad commander left it out of his report and made Cassian out to be a more valuable prisoner than he actually was.

The fact that Cassian completed the mission and made it out alive made up for most of his insubordination. The fact that he came back to the very secret Rebel base with a fully functional Imperial battle droid powerful enough to crush his skull with one hand and with an attitude that could best be described as most of Cassian's internal monologue verbalized cancelled it out.

The bleeding hearts on base were horrified by the popular assumption that K-2 was just waiting for the opportunity to kill Cassian and take his ship and all the information he'd gathered back to the Empire. They were equally horrified by the initial plan to break down K-2 for spare parts and hand over his databanks to the analysts. So neither of them mention that the only reason K-2 remained functional after escaping alongside Cassian was the simple and kind of embarrassing fact that Cassian is not a tech and had no idea how to shut down an unfamiliar droid short of shooting it a lot in the head. Because clearly when the Empire was designing top-of-the-line learning AI-powered war machines for high combat zones they based their internal storage and power structures on common organic templates. Honestly, the Empire is not in fact as stupid or as financially stable as everyone in the Rebellion seems to think.

Cassian hadn't shut down K-2, which lead to the two of them trapped on a tiny ship for five days while Cassian bounced in and out of hyperspace like some sort of tunnelling wildlife in a prairie field. And, well-liked or not, the fact that Cassian and K-2 often had the same general outlook on things was probably the only thing that kept K-2 from breaking Cassian's neck and taking the ship as far away from any politically sensitive areas of space as he could get without rubbing two sticks together for power.

The last part of the story that they tend to interpret creatively is the part where Cassian 'reprogrammed' K-2. Because... well. Cassian is many things, including a decent self-taught mechanic and, at the time, an enthusiastic newcomer to the world of hacking. What he is not, is a software engineer specializing in complex self-aware AI built in an Imperial proprietary programming language he'd never had the occasion or need to learn. Cassian's original plan, K-2 suspects, was to open up his chest plate and yank out as many wires as would make K-2 unstable enough to create a distraction for the incoming Stormtroopers.

What actually happened went more like Cassian coming at him with a welding torch he'd grabbed from one of the labs, a lot of bemusedly horrified yelling on K-2's part, and Cassian giving up on the plan after only managing to melt a small section of K-2's chest, just enough to damage the connections around the chip where his primary objective programming lived. K-2 broke Cassian's nose. Cassian kicked K-2 through a window. It was all very dramatic.

It turned out Cassian didn't need a distraction to take out ten Stormtroopers when he was fuelled by dedication to his cause ~~a near lethal dose of stimulants and a new found glee for the power of the welding torch~~. K-2, suddenly lacking the overwhelming compulsion to defend the Empire and its interests at all costs, used the tools in the lab to perform minor brain surgery on himself, removing the damaged chip entirely. He didn't realize until after he'd done it that the chip had also contained rather a lot of his combat skills and his translation protocols for most commonly spoken languages. Because why keep everything nice and tidy when you can shove it all in a haphazard mess of directories to save a few pieces of hardware? The realization of his own poorly designed module framework destroyed what little loyalty he had developed to the Empire without the third-party influence of the primary objective programming.

"I want to come with you," K-2 had said, bodily lifting Cassian into his ship and clambering in after him, the mud of the forest floor making everything awkward and graceless and... squishy.

"And why should I trust you?" Cassian had demanded.

"Because there are forty-seven Stormtroopers and six battle droids ten seconds from our location and assuming they're following standard protocol aerial defences will be active in roughly eighty seconds. And you've already failed at killing me once."

"You're leaking," Cassian had said, and oddly it had only been then that K-2 had realized the human was under the influence of rather a lot of chemicals.

"So are you," he had pointed out. If organic stupidity got him caught and disassembled he would spend the last minutes of his life very angry.

"Close the door and shut up," Cassian had snapped, and that had been that.

But sure. Cassian reprogrammed him.

Back at the rebel base K-2 lets a twitchy maintenance tech fix the damage to his casing and the exposed and dangling wires. But the warped edges and burned plastic around the empty slot where the chip used to rest, he leaves. Nobody bothers to ask him why, which conveniently means he never has to ask himself why, either.

"So your obedience protocols--" Cassian says, once K-2's finally being released from the clutches of the analysts into his custody.

"Don't exist," K-2 replies. "That was never part of my core programming. Removing the primary objective module took care of all of that."

"Which is going to create about twenty reports all on its own," one of the analysts mutters.

Cassian blinks. "Interesting. No obedience protocols at all."

"Just like you," the analyst grins over at Cassian. Cassian laughs along. K-2 doesn't understand. He's only known Cassian a few days and he already knows Cassian's obedience protocols are hardwired and unquestionable. He doesn't yet understand the deliberate crafting of a rebellious persona to preserve plausible deniability on the Alliance's part. Nor has he had occasion to experience the conflicting directives that make it necessary to disobey orders to better serve the greater cause. He'd received a lot of stupid orders in the past, but he simply hadn't cared. Droids, even advanced ones, weren't expected to question the effectiveness of their orders.

Cassian's little adventure apparently wets his appetite for solo missions. He starts making requests of his commanders, which promptly dominos from 'absolutely not' to 'you can do partner work' to 'yes, you can pick your partners' to 'yes, sure, take the possibly murderous betrayal droid, go get yourself killed, please get out of my office'.

"Just stay out of my way and do what I tell you," Cassian says.

"Settle down, you haven't made captain yet," K-2 retorts, and takes the pilot seat before Cassian can get to it. "This ship is certainly... quaint. And alarmingly expendable."

"Ha," says Cassian. "Not all of us are used to living in the lap of luxury." He pauses. "Also, they think we're going to get blown out of the sky as soon as we get there."

"Which is why I'm piloting," K-2 says, cheerfully.

They do not get blown out of the sky. In fact, they successfully hand over an obscene amount of credits to the taciturn captain of a freelance cargo ship in exchange for a datapad containing maps outlining current Imperial transport routes, some of which were running too close to Rebel bases for comfort.

It's an Imperial controlled world, so K-2 can loiter outside the bar where Cassian makes the exchange without drawing much attention. Nobody suspects that they're rebels. They do, on the other hand, notice the Imperial emblem on K-2's shoulder, and the way Cassian is walking beside him without appearing frightened. The two men who approach them are drunk enough that they can barely stand upright, but they both have cheap commercial blasters and a lot of pent up resentment towards their not-so-benevolent dictators.

Cassian moves before K-2 has finished calculating the best course of action. He knocks the blaster sideways out of the first man's hands with one swipe of his forearm, and drives the heel of his palm up into his nose. The second man launches himself at Cassian. K-2 sticks out his leg and watches in amusement as the attacker lands face first on the pavement. Cassian takes both of their weapons, and then when he notices the crowd they've gathered he lands a hard, deliberate kick into the ribs of the man K-2 tripped. K-2 hears bones snap.

Cassian walks away briskly, a blaster in each hand. K-2 follows.

"You're good at that," K-2 says once they've returned to the ship.

"Great," Cassian says, expressionless.

"You should consider more under-cover work. Fewer active combat missions. Can I have one of those?"

"No," Cassian says, setting the blasters in the weapons locker and closing the door. They both know K-2 could take one if he chose to. He doesn't. It's a very touching moment. Building trust. K-2 doesn't pick up a blaster for the next year.

By then, Cassian has abandoned all pretence of working in anything but intelligence.

"I thought this career change was to avoid storming Imperial outposts?" K-2 snaps, his whole body wedged in a door that very desperately wants to close. Down the hall, Cassian is typing at a consul furiously, lips pressed together.

"This career change was because I used excessive force on a civilian to maintain a relatively unimportant cover and you provided positive reinforcement. And to be fair, this seems more like a case of the Imperial outpost storming us."

K-2's shoulder creaks alarmingly. Behind him, he can hear the clomp of approaching Stormtroopers.

"Cassian, can you be finished in the next twenty seconds?"

Cassian snorts. "You think very highly of me."

K-2 simulates a sigh, just to make sure his irritation is fully communicated. "I really don't. You're going to have to watch your own back for a couple minutes, try not to get shot anywhere fatal. Like your head. Or your heart. I'm not carrying you out of here."

Cassian nods acknowledgement and K-2 spins backward, letting the door close between himself and Cassian and facing the approaching Stormtroopers head on. The first trooper is over-confident, and K-2 grabs his blaster out of his hands before throwing him down the corridor over his fellow troopers' heads. After that, it goes rather quickly.

He uses another blaster to break back through the door. It takes almost sixty seconds. This is one of the newer bases. Construction has improved.

K-2 has spent a great deal of time relearning his lost combat protocols, and fine-tuning his tactical awareness, which is the only reason Cassian's head remains attached to his body. He's observed the situation on the other side of the door, calculated possible courses of action, chosen the one most likely to result in both of them surviving with the data intact, and acted, in about 1.2 seconds (so maybe he panicked a little, nobody needs to know). The bolt from K-2's blaster skims Cassian's shoulder (K-2 sees his slight flinch, though no organic would have noticed) and strikes the soldier holding a blaster to Cassian's head in the stomach. Or, at least, that's what should happen.

What actually happens is blocked from K-2's sight by Cassian's elbow as he swings up and back, using all of his weight to break the soldier's hold. She knees Cassian in the skull and jumps back, firing a shot that singes the plating on K-2's side. Cassian sways forward, but at least he falls in the proper direction to grab his blaster where it's skidded across the floor and under the consul. The woman isn't even bleeding, which shouldn't be physically possible. She's not even wearing a helmet, and the extent of her protective gear is a thin body armour designed for flexibility. K-2's calculations were accurate to twenty decimals.

K-2 fires again, but she dodges. Approximately 50 meters away something explodes. Enthusiastically.

"Ugh," she says, pushing red hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. "I don't have time for this. Congratulations, you live to fight another day. Go tell your Rebel friends all about your glorious victory."

Cassian swears in a language K-2 doesn't know, but by the time he's turned around and steady on his feet she's gone.

"She took the data card," he says. "And we don't have time to get back into the system."

"I specifically told you not to get shot in the head," K-2 snaps. Cassian ignores him.

When they get back to their ship Cassian punches a wall and disappears into the fresher to throw up. K-2 puts away all of the blasters in the weapons locker and runs some self-diagnostics on his targeting algorithms.

When Cassian comes out he lets K-2 patch up the wound on his shoulder and put him through all the standard concussion tests. "This is why you don't get a blaster," he says, poking at the bandage.

"I probably saved your life," K-2 retorts. "I can't even leave you alone for a minute."

"I had things under control."

"You absolutely did not."

"At least you didn't hit me anywhere that will create a visible scar. It's kind of important for me to be forgettable."

"Don't be a child, it's not going to scar."

It's the second time that day that K-2's predictions turn out to be incorrect.

Three months later they're sitting on a pile of rocks in the middle of an icy cold coniferous forest, avoiding the uncomfortable stares of a squadron of brand new soldiers out on their first real mission. Because apparently being useless enough to have to request a training mission be diverted to come pick them up from a planet that is basically one large hostile swamp means they have to suffer through accompanying the group on the actual mission. A glorified camping trip, really.

Cassian presses closer to K-2, shivering. No one can see them now that it's gotten dark. Not that anyone is looking. They live out of each other's pockets whether or not they're on-base or running missions to the point that everyone knows giving a message to one of them is as good as giving it to the other and it doesn't matter which one of them shows up for their initial debrief after missions because their summarized reports will be practically identical. They don't usually spend enough time on-base for K-2 to realize just how uncomfortable they make most of their fellow Rebels. They've rubbed off on each other and it throws people off, organic or droid. Add on to that they're spies who regularly go under-cover as Imperials for long periods of time with all that entails and it's no wonder nobody is asking them to join them around the camp fire.

Cassian shifts again, and his hand comes up to rub at his shoulder.

"Stop that," K-2 says automatically. "You'll irritate the healing process. You'll scar."

"Yeah," Cassian says, absently, and continues poking at it. K-2 wants to grab his hand and hold him still, but he doesn't. He takes 2.7 seconds to process his observations.

"Why do you want the reminder?" he asks.

Cassian glances at him quickly, and K-2 meets his gaze, not dimming his optics. Cassian is still somehow startled when K-2 proves how well he knows him.

"Maybe I want to remember why you don't get to carry a blaster," he says.

"You're not as funny as you think you are. And I'd like to remind you, again, that I wound up saving-- oh. Cassian, it's hardly the same."

"You're right. The welding torch was far more creative."

"This doesn't... seem healthy," K-2 says, carefully.

Cassian barks out a surprised laugh. "We were born into a war," he says. "It's kind of nice to have a scar because someone cared enough to save me."

"You were aiming for that chip," K-2 says, streams of new data suddenly bursting through his processor.

Cassian shrugs. "I thought it was the most likely to make you unstable. Don't mistake it for anything noble."

"I would never," K-2 sniffs. Cassian kicks at his knee with one booted foot.

Carefully, K-2 places his arm around Cassian's shoulders. The cold is making his servos slow, and Cassian is still shivering. He pushes Cassian's hand away from his shoulder and replaces it with his own. Cassian's body is soft, almost delicate under his hand, though he knows better. He keeps his hand still, covering the mostly-healed injury, and it feels like keeping something safe.


End file.
